As expected, the Federal Reserve kept its benchmark federal funds rate unchanged. While it said the economy had "continued to pick up" since its last policy-setting meeting in September, the Fed maintained the rate in a range of zero to 0.25 percent.

The cost of funding and lending may remain high for a while say Australian Banks. The story published in today's The Age reports that the elevation of the banking funding costs may well go through next year.

The federal treasurer of Australia Wayne Swan says that the interest rates are currently on hold, which is great for home buyers. However, he said that the key benchmark rates will not stay low for a long time and will rise.

Fed keeps interest rates unchanged at historic lows and signals economy is starting to stabilize.

On July 9 Bank of England decided to maintain the the current interest rates at .05 level, but the borrowers are paying mortgage rates that are hovering around 8 percent. Now the British banks are accused of "mortgage rip-off" as the current rates are too high compared with the Bank of England interest rates.

Yesterday's Fed meeting yielded no surprises. The Fed said it would keep interest rates near zero "for an extended period" and would proceed with its previously announced plans to buy up to $300 billion in long-term US Treasuries by autumn and up to $1.25 trillion in MBS. Meanwhile, over the pond, the ECB injected an unprecedented $622 billion in one-year liquidity to boost its sagging economy.

The yield on the ten-Treasury was sitting at nearly 2% at the start of the year as investors feared further declines in economic activity and fretted about the stability of the financial system. Fast-forward to June and the yield on the benchmark Treasury sits just south of 4%.

US President Barack Obama is resolute in getting a credit-card law out soon. The law among other things would prohibit hidden fee increases and delayed fee charges that contribute to consumer. Obama has therefore called on credit card companies that are willing to act responsibly to cooperate with his administration in this matter. President Obama made his intentions known when he met with CEOs of leading credit-card companies on Friday 21st of May.

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee today voted to maintain the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to continue with its programme of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves and to increase its size by £50 billion to a total of £125 billion.

In today's monetary policy meeting the European Central Bank cut the benchmark interest rates lowering it to 1 percent. Analysts were thinking that ECB will cut the interest rates somewhere in the range of .25 to .50 bases points. EU Central Bank decided to cut the interest rates by a quarter percentage point to help to improve the continental Europe's recession.

Ads about Mortgage Rates are everywhere. You cannot go onto your computer without seeing ads from several different lenders and the television is full of ads touting their mortgage rates or the fact that rates are way down.